Milestone (2020) - Movie Review and Ending Explanation

 The last couple of weeks have offered me a little bit of free time to watch three films. Incidentally, all three – Ram Prasad ki Tehrvi, Paglait, and Milestone – deal with death and how those close to you deal with it and cope up in their own different ways. All three were good, but Milestone Stands out for its sensitive and realistic portrayal.

Milestone's principal character is a truck driver called Ghalib, and aptly so as the movie is akin to slow-moving poetry. But the ending left me baffled; it was too abrupt, too simplistic, and seemed to not do justice to the movie. I thought maybe I haven't understood the end, so I started scouring the internet to see if anyone has provided a viable explanation. There were a few blogs that tried to explain the ending, but I wasn't convinced. Anyways, since it was past midnight, I decided to sleep over it and worry about it the next day. But possibly, I was thinking about it subconsciously in my sleep because once I woke up, I realized there is a possible explanation. Not sure if this is what the makers had in mind, but this is my interpretation.

Before we proceed, I must caution that the explanation will have many spoilers, so if you haven't watched the movie, stop and catch it on Netflix.

The film takes us along the journey of Ghalib, who is nearing retirement and has recently lost his wife. He injures himself on the job and picks up a backache that makes it difficult for him to follow the career that he so loves. We are informed that not all was well between him and his wife through several sequences of events. An elder's council in his village is involved in mediating a dispute between him and his wife's family members. Things are not so rosy at work also. One of his best friends and colleague loses his job to his assistant due to age-related health issues. Ghalib is also assigned a new pupil who he reluctantly accepts, and that further aggravates his insecurities. Through his various interactions, we know Ghalib is an honest man who desperately wants to keep his job and is even ready to part with his life savings to the new assistant just to keep his job.

Things are reaching a crescendo, and then all of a sudden, one fine morning, everything falls back in place. The assistant, while driving alone, has an accident and wrecks the truck, which puts him out of favor with the company owners. Ghalib's backache miraculously disappears. The film ends with a phone call from the assistant's elder sister, who thanks Ghalib for fixing everything. It starts raining, and the credits roll.

Lingering question: What happened? Why the sudden change of fortunes?

Here is my take: Ghalib made sure that his deceased wife's family was well cared for, including having a permanent source of income. We were earlier informed that things were not well between him and his wife as she possibly suspected him of having an extramarital affair. It eventually becomes evident that he loved his wife but couldn't devote as much time as he wanted to her because of his dedication to his job. Also, Ghalib is not very good at expressing his emotions. The only exception is when the assistant offers to leave the job if Ghalib agrees to marry his elder sister. In a rare show of emotions, Ghalib reacts angrily and slaps the assistant. I think his wife's soul must have felt relieved of whatever complaints she had against Ghalib. She must have intervened to set things right for him, including the assistant's accident which he escaped unscathed but ran out of favor with owners for the losses he had incurred, Ghalib's backache going away, and him getting his job back. The phone call, in the end, was symbolic of his wife thanking him for setting things right, and the rain possibly signified Ghalib's tears of grief.

Conclusion: A lot of us are dealing with the devastation and loss of near and dear ones due to COVID, and that may be the reason for movies based on death, grief, and loss coming in of late. Milestone is a gem of a film and reiterates that not everyone deals with the loss the same way; everyone has a different coping mechanism.

Surinder Vicky as Ghalib and Laksvir Saran as the assistant are convincing, as are all the other supporting characters. I hope this film is not just an exception but becomes the norm in terms of the portrayal of Punjabi characters. This breaks the stereotype of loud and funny people in turbans shouting "balle-balle" every two minutes. It is an earthy, emotional, and sensitive portrayal—credit to Ivan Ayr for crafting this masterpiece.

Review : Movie - Agneepath

Almost every third post on my Facebook wall is talking about this movie. There is lot of nostalgia, lot of memories since the first one has such a cult status. So needless to say that there was a lot of hype and I went in with a lot of expectations and came out with a mixed bag of feelings.

Plot:
Being a remake it borrows the basic idea from the original so a lot of things are the same there is Vijay Dinanath Chauhan, Mandwa, Kancha, Baap ka badla, the poem et all. But not everything is the same, there is no Krishnan Iyer MA but there is Rauf Lala. The basic plot is the same but you cannot say so about the full storyline. It won’t matter if you’ve seen the first one or not. This reinterpretation of the movie works in its own right.

Review : Movie - Don 2

So, why is every other so called critic in the town trashing Don 2? It is a pretty decent movie albeit minor aberrations. In fact, I found it better than the first one. If the same people can’t stop raving about a nonsense MI-4, I guess, they should give Don a little due respect.

Plot:

The story starts 5 years after where it ended in the last part. Don (Shahrukh Khan) is now the biggest drug dealer in Asia and has plans now to expand to Europe. But to do that he has to take care of the reigning drug lords who themselves are wary of the rising Asian King. Don plans a bank heist to meet his goals and sets out to build his team which includes his old foe Vardhan (Boman Irani), a computer hacker Sameer (Kunal Kapoor), a mystery woman Ayesha (Lara Dutta) and a group of goons working under Jabbar (Nawab Shah). Meanwhile Malik (Om Puri) and Roma (Priyanka Chopra) are still following his trail. Does he succeed in the bank heist? Do Vardhan, Sameer and Jabbar loyally toe his line or ditch him? In all of this, how he handles Malik and Roma and the Interpol - makes up for the rest of the story. 

Review: Movie - Rockstar

Thankfully I was able to watch this movie on the large screen, today being the last day last show at the local cinema here. I am assuming most of you have already watched it but still here is what I think of it.

Plot:  

Janardan Jakhar (later Jordan), inspired by Jim Morrison, seeks pain to infuse life into his music on the advice of his friend and college canteen manager Khatanaji. In his quest of pain he seeks to woo Heer, a dil-todne-ki-machine to fall in love and get his heart broken. Heer who is getting married soon wants to live life to the fullest before settling down with a rich husband. Soon enough Heer and JJ are running around Delhi streets engaging in activities that they call ‘Gandh-Machana’.

Heer moves to Prague with her husband and JJ gets thrown out of his house and takes refuge in ‘Hazrat Nizzamuddin’. He is spotted by Ustaad Jameel Khan (Shammi Kapoor) a renowned classical artist and thus his singing career gets a start. Events unfold and Heer  Jordan’s paths cross several times.  Heer who is JJ’s elixir of creativity also becomes the poison of his destruction.  For Heer, Jordan is the spark of life and yet the very flame that consumes her.

Review: Movie - Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

This was one of those rare movies for which I did not read any reviews, didn’t care what the response was on Facebook/Twitter, I just went ahead and bought the tickets and am glad that I did that J. I loved Zoya Akhtar’s first one ‘Luck By Chance’ which I thought was an intelligent film. So I went for ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ not only for Zoya but also for the super combo of Hrithik, Abhay and Farhan. This is yet another movie this year that breaks the traditional ‘Bollywood Hero’ mould. Each of the above actors is a character that makes up the story, so no boring hero-heroine drama. A lot of people speculated that the movie would be just another repackaged  ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ or a desi version of ‘Hangover’. Thankfully it’s none of that.

Review: Movie - Delhi Belly

A word of caution – Please leave your kids and your parents behind if you are planning to go for ‘Delhi Belly’. Also don’t go if you are averse to language abundantly laced with expletives and choicest of slang words or if, in case, you like orange juice :). The movie though thoroughly enjoyable uses language that may not be suitable or acceptable to all. Delhi Belly is a tribute to both the underworld of the city as well as what might happen to you if you choose to try the street food without caring much for the hygiene.

Plot:

One of the virtues of this film is its simple plot. It’s a short, sweet, fun film that makes no attempt at imparting you a message or teaching you the virtues of being a hero etc. It’s a story of three average guys with their own little problems and what happens to them when they get entangled with a diamond smuggling ring.  There are other characters thrown in to add flavor and color to the happenings on screen but all of them gel quite well in the narrative and nothing seems to be out of place. Most characters would remind you of somebody you have met in real life.

Review: Movie - Ready

Ready is a celebration of Salman Khan. His diehard fans, I guess, don’t need to read beyond the first line and can simply go watch the movie and join the celebration :). For others - don’t expect it to be a ‘Dabbang’ although the makers do try to cash in on the legacy apologetically in a fight sequence where Salman takes off his glasses and then asks ‘kahan rakhun?’ and then hangs them behind his collar with Dabbang’s music playing in the background.

Plot:

Well there is a serious lack of plot. It’s more of a series of gags put together akin to recent Sajid Khan movies like ‘House full’ and ‘Heyy Babyy’ or more like one of those David Dhawan/Govinda movies. The motive is simple to extract laughter out of you somehow even if it low brow humour. Asin is on the run from her two gangster Uncles and takes refuge in Salman’s house where everybody adores her. Once our hero falls for the girl, he sets out to reunite both her uncles and settle the feud between them.

Review: Movie - Dharti (Punjabi)

Well I have been waiting for a good Punjabi movie for a long time so when the promising promos for Jimmy Sheirgill starrer came up, I was naturally excited. Last Jimmy movie in Punjabi that I remember was "Yaaran Naal Baharaan" which was thoroughly enjoyable and all the more the reason for me to go for 'Dharti'.

Plot:

Well honestly the promos were grossly misleading, the promos had projected that the movie had a lot to do with Air Force and little with Politics but the plot was the exact opposite. It's an attempt to make 'Rajneeti' in Punjabi although it has nothing in common with that film. But seriously a ‘Bad’ one. It looked more like an attempt to cash in on the recent success of that movie. It’s a Jimmy Sheirgill production. Most of the movie has been shot in Chandigarh and around – you can easily spot landmarks – PU campus, FunCity, Naada Sahib, Madhya Marg etc. Sadly, the production team has spent most of its money on the cars used by the Characters rather than on actual production quality. If you have a good story to tell viewers won’t mind not seeing any luxury cars on screen, they see them on the roads anyways.

Review: Movie - Dum Maaro Dum

 Honestly I didn’t have too high hopes from Dum Maaro Dum. After all how creative can the makers of a film get whose title track uses music from an old hit and churns out such gibberish lyrics as “Unche se uncha banda, potty pe baithe nanga” or “aaj chair khich raha hai, kal meri skirt khichega”. But still since my wife is an Abhishek fan and I did actually like Rohan Sippy’s earlier attempt - “Bluffmaster”, we went for the movie.

Plot/Cast: 

As the title and the promos suggest the movie is about drugs and the mafia and of course by this time you all know about Goa. Goa is a character by itself in the movie. And if you’ve been to Goa before you’ll feel an instant connect.  Abhishek plays a cop who’s determined to free Goa of the drugs.  Bips is an air hostess who is into smuggling. Rana is the man with guitar-laidback, susegad. Prateik Babbar is a teen who gets entangled in the drug business. Aditya Pancholi is the drug lord – pretty much the usual ensemble of characters of films of this genre.

Sita, Ramayan and the Blues

Was checking the reviews for Bollywood movies released this week which included an animation film: “Ramayana – the epic”. Some said it was good others said there was no story – there was no innovation or inventiveness in the film. I have not yet seen the movie but to be honest I believe reinventing a story that has been told atleast a billion times can be daunting.

Mahabharat and Ramayan has been told and retold countless times – in books, films, TV, folklore but still there is something that we never get enough of them. Anyways I am not writing about them today, we all know how great these scriptures are.

I just wanted to share with you a film on Ramayan. One of the reviewers had mentioned this film in his review so I just tried my luck on Youtube and guess what.. I was not disappointed :) Actually the film has been made under a creative commons license and cannot be released commercially so the best way for the maker to reach the audiences was to share it on Youtube (Also seems like the maker struggled long with the copyright holders of the 80-year-old songs recorded by Annette Hanshaw which made it difficult for them to release it commercially).

The name of the film is “Sita Sings the Blues”. The “Blues” in the title is a pun intended to reflect the music genre that is used to take the story forward and as well as the suffering she has to go through. The film is a modern take on the story from Sita’s perspective. The film apparently is based on the experiences of the maker Nina Paley whose husband had dumped her after moving to India. So when she was introduced to Ramayan, she couldn’t help but draw parallels between herself and Sita.

I think it is a nice third party.. I say third party as she is not an Indian.. so she will have an unbiased view. As Indians we consider these scriptures holy and sacred; hence don’t dare to question them. But the film is not at all offensive ( as per me) as I said it’s a neutral modern take on the story.. it just asks a few questions.. and it answers some while others are just left unanswered. The movie really impresses as it cuts all the distractions and focuses on the main plot involving Sita. There are flaws like for example Lakshman’s character is almost missing but the film overall gets the point across.

One more word of caution is that the film amply uses “Blues” (the music) . Nearly half of the film has songs so people who don’t like the genre will have to be more patient. But all in all if you are bored of hearing the same story again and again there is a good attempt at alternative story telling.

Let me know what you think of it……